Choose or Die review: Netflix takes the fun out of a killer video game

Early on in Netflix’s proudly derivative new horror film Choose or Die, a mother brandishing a kitchen knife bickers with her teenage son over his father’s obsession with the 1980s. He hides in the man-cave of Eddie Marsan, his reclusive father. It is a space filled with old gaming consoles. He sees his vintage computer flicker green until it displays a question: “His tongue or her ears? Choose or die.” What initially seems like a morbid role-playing game graduates to a terrifying reality: The option he takes will materialize into an actual punishment inflicted on either his wife or son.

The fetishization of the 1980s — its trends and pop culture, especially movies and music — is recalibrated to frightening ends in Toby Meakins’ Choose or Die. Unlike, say, The Ready Player One, Simon Allen’s light script doesn’t wholly worship at the decade’s altar. Yes, there are overt references. A Nightmare on Elm StreetThis film stars Gary Newman, Fad Gadget and industrial music composer Fad Gadget. The Prodigy’s Liam Howlett even provides the movie’s synth score. Allen and Meakins are trying to question the horrifying effects of living in the past. It’s a smart lesson obscured by a kitschy script that feels like Allen is taking too much pleasure in his self-perceived importance.

Its basic characteristics make it a more terrifying take than the one that precedes. Jumanji. Three months after the film’s opening events, Kayla (Iola Evans) leaves her janitorial job cleaning an empty office building aptly named “Kismet.” She’s a recent college dropout, a whiz with motherboards and coding who’s looking for a job in programming while caring for her ailing mother, who’s addicted to unspecified illegal drugs. The pair haven’t been the same since Kayla’s young brother drowned in the local swimming pool. When Kayla isn’t at home, she hangs out with a fellow programmer and game designer, the shy, lovesick Isaac (Asa Butterfield).

Cursr Films

While sifting through Isaac’s recent rummage-sale acquisitions, Kayla discovers an old game called “Curs>R.” It promises a $125,000 grand prize for the winner. When she calls the hotline, she’s greeted by the voice of Nightmare on Elm StreetRobert Englund plays himself as a guest star. Kayla believes the game might still have some money potential so she repairs it and then plays it. This causes a series of horrendous events which puts her and her family in serious danger.

It takes 84 minutes Choose or DieIt is an action-packed film, with strong storytelling and a whip bang beat. Kayla, played by Evans, is a surprise newcomer. Evans gives Kayla a full, rich life. She’s a bundle of stress and exhaustion, all fleshed out over her hardened face. Her performance begs for other components around her to feel similarly elevated, a request the film can’t complete because of its frustrating simplicity. In that regard, one of the film’s biggest offenders is the wishy-washy character Lance (Ryan Gage), who might work in the building, might be in a sexual relationship with Kayla’s mother, and is definitely her dealer, but languishes as a cartoonish trash predator who’s barely feigning believability.

Given the film’s tiny ensemble and scale — there are just a few sets, which probably made pandemic shooting easier — Kayla and Isaac’s relationship needs to carry the story. Their weak interpersonal relationships make it difficult to believe they are credible. Kayla taps in to the telephone at a restaurant, as an example. Curs>R game. She notices that her choices in gameplay can alter reality, which causes a waitress at the restaurant to choke on her drink. The ASMR sound design is breathtaking in this scene.

The incident leaves her shaken and desperate for answers about the game’s origins. When a confused Isaac promises to find answers, she sneers, “Yeah, you go do that. You’re so fuckin’ smart.” It’s never clear why she’s so belligerent. She’s so casually cruel to Isaac, it raises the question of how the two ever met, or how they’re still friends. This shortcoming makes it impossible to imagine any romantic relationship between the two of them.

Choose or Die is best when Allen and Meakins blissfully design scares based around Kayla’s grief over her brother’s death. In an abandoned swimming pool, one scene is set, with a blinding fog of green light and shocks of lighting. It features the movie’s best jump-scares, as the sound takes over for the audience’s obscured vision. In this fright, which feeds off Kayla’s trauma and sets up an impossible decision around her brother’s ghost, it’s clear how Meakins wants to explain the pitfalls that come from living in the past, and the way unresolved torments can eat at people. It would be a powerful allegory if the film didn’t stay in that register. But Meakins and Allen can’t leave well enough alone.

Cursr Films

Final act Choose or DieThe filmmakers attempt to apply logic to the absurd idea, and the resulting frantic flight is quite bizarre. It’s an odd move, considering Jumanji, for instance, thrives on the unexplained mystery of the boardgame’s origin. The filmmakers instead attach a dark backstory to this game, which only confuses mood and tone. They further reach for profundity through Kayla’s confrontation with the proverbial final boss, a totemic version of a fragile white man alarmed by society’s increasing hunger for cultural diversity, and the idea that people like him are more impediments to people of color than white knights, riding in to save the day. “Aren’t guys like me allowed to be heroes anymore?” he gripes. This line is landed with a bang in an ending that seems far too serious for a movie that had very few preparations for making such a powerful representative statement.

Meakins’ Choose or DieIt could well be the next horror movie, a grimly entertaining one that picks up from the Escape Room and Saw movies. But the creators’ quest for deeper meaning feels strained and overreaching, and it overwhelms the adventurous spirit of the film’s first half. This is Evans’ best point, as she never falters, no matter what the circumstances.

Choose or DieYou can stream Netflix right now